


The Journey Home.

by BarPurple



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Gen, Post Season 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-30 19:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12115944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: They were supposed to be in stasis for two years, so why was Eli waking Rush up after less than an hour?





	1. Chapter 1

Rush staggered forward and just managed to catch himself on the edge of the stasis pod. The room was spinning and it took several seconds of furious blinking before Eli finally came into focus.

“Are you okay Rush?”

“What…how long have we been under?”

Eli looked panicked, “About half an hour.”

“Why the hell are you waking me up already?”

Eli opened his mouth to answer, but Rush spoke over him; “Let me guess there’s a problem.”

A dry chuckle from further along made them turn to see Young leaning against the bulkhead taking shuddering breaths; “Didn’t take you long to go from frozen to snark.”

Rush threw him a sour look and flapped a hand at Eli, who quickly took his cue to explain.

“Destiny dropped out of FTL and turned around. We’re retracing our course and I can’t stop it.”

That news cleared Rush’s head instantly. His body was still shaking off the effects of stasis so his attempt to run towards the control room was more of a staggering lurch. Eli had no trouble keeping pace with him as Young stumbled along behind them.

“It’s weird because apparently the course change was made by Destiny, but the systems were activated from an external source.”

Before he could consider that the alarms sounded for an incoming wormhole. They didn’t need Young’s barked order of; “Gate room! Now!” to change direction.

“Eli who else have you woken up?”

“Just you and Rush.”

“Let’s hope we’re not under attack then.”

 

The last chevron was just locking into place as they entered the gate room. Young grabbed guns for each of them from the weapons locker and rolled his eyes when Rush instantly put it down on the console in favour of checking the data. Eli was muttering to himself as he went through the lessons the Greer had given him on handling a firearm. Young caught his shoulder; “Deep breath, you can do this.”

“Something’s coming through.”

Young and Eli took up shooting stances while Rush looked on. The event horizon rippled and a small, rough looking cardboard box bounced onto the ramp. Eli cocked his head to one side; “Well, that’s weird, and a bit anti-climactic.”

Young glance over his shoulder at Rush; “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I believe for once it’s possible.”

Young snorted and holstered his gun to pick up the box. It looked as if someone had kludged it together from scraps and tape, but it had a rough oval opening cut in the top and written on the side in marker pen was the word ‘Tissues’. He showed the box to Rush who laughed. Eli huffed; “Okay, what’s going on?”

Rush folded his arms across his chest, “Back when the Stargate program was started Dr Jackson was off world. SGC needed to send him a message that it was them coming not an enemy, so Jack O’Neill tossed a box of tissues through. Daniel sent it back with the message ‘send more’.”

Eli grinned at this bit of SGC trivial; “Oh, so do we need to send it back?”

Rush looked down at the console; “Nope, something else is coming through.”

Young drew his gun again, but kept the barrel down. The event horizon rippled and a woman walked through. She was dressed in too long jeans that were roll up above her bare feet and a shirt that looked familiar. She stopped at the top of the ramp and looked at the three men in the room before raising her hands and saying in a Scottish accent; “I come in peace.”

“Oh cool!”

Rush and Young both gave Eli a stern look. He shrugged; “What? It is cool.”

Young gave a slight shake of his head and addressed the stranger; “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

She lowered her hands and smiled at them; “I’m here to send you back to Earth, and my name is Cassidy Rush. Hello Pops.”

Rush’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline as Young and Eli gapped at him.

“You.. you’re my daughter?”

Young and Eli were looking between them as if they were watching a tennis match.

“Yep.”

“Who’s your mother?”

It was perhaps the most obvious question, but Rush was having difficulty processing this new development. He’d never really thought about children. The woman, Cassidy, was still smiling, her brown eyes sparkling with merriment.

“Destiny.”

Silence fell for a split second before Eli said; “Wow Rush you got busy with the ship!”

“Eli!”

The shout of outrage came from both Cassidy and Rush. Young sighed and holstered his gun. Space travel was far stranger than fiction, but why did they have to keep running into variations on the theme of Rush?

“Okay Eli, go wake TJ, we’re going to need her to run some tests. Miss Rush? Will you come to the infirmary?”

She heaved a put up on sigh that underlined her alleged parentage to a tee; “If I must.”

She strolled down the ramp and walked towards Rush, who was still dazed. He looked at her bare feet and laughed; “You’ve got my toes.”


	2. Chapter 2

Young fell into step with Rush. The woman, Rush’s daughter, and that was still a hard concept to wrap his mind around, was easily leading the way to the infirmary, bouncing on her bare toes and running her fingers over the wall of the corridor. She certainly looked like she was familiar with the ship. He’d expected Rush to be firing all sorts of questions at her, but he was oddly quiet, just watching her with a strange look in his eyes. Young could see the cogs whirling, but as per usual he had no idea what the cranky scientist was thinking.

“So, you named your kid after a character from your favourite film?”

Rush sighed; “Apparently so.”

Cassidy turned and walked backwards for a few steps long enough to say; “He tried to call me Sundance to start with, but I didn’t like it.”

Young shot Rush an incredulous look; “She’s got your stubborn streak.”

“Let’s see if TJ can find out what else of mine she has, shall we?”

-x-x-x-

TJ was a little surprised to be met in the infirmary by Young, Rush and child of Rush. She’d had to shout at Eli to slow down and breath when he woke her. Waking up to rapid babble about Rush doing the nasty with the ship and producing a child called Cassidy was not the best way to shake off the after effects of stasis, but they’d got there in the end, she’d just not believed what he was telling her. She went into medic mode and pulled on a pair of gloves; “Okay Eli, looks like I won’t have to check you for concussion.”

Eli said ‘thank you’, but it sound more like ‘I told you so’.

Cassidy was looking anxiously at TJ, Young was about to step in and reassure her, but Rush got there first, giving his daughter’s shoulder a brief squeeze. The uncharacteristic friendly gesture looked out of place coming from Rush, but it brought a smile to Cassidy’s face.

“Don’t worry TJ is a good medic. She won’t hurt you.”

“I know that Pops, I’m just not used to being around so many people.”

Eli caught Young’s eye and jerked his head to the far wall. Backing off a little way and giving their unexpected guest space wasn’t a bad idea, but that Cassidy found five people in a large room a crowd was unsettling.

“You are from Destiny?”

“Yep.”

“But you’re not used to people? What happened to the crew?”

Cassidy hissed as TJ drew blood; “You know what happened. The attempt to dial Earth.”

The was a beat of confused silence before Rush said; “She’s the daughter of my temporal duplicate, from the Destiny that we thought was destroyed.”

Rush stated it so calmly, but it was a shock to Young; “How did he survive? How did the ship survive? It fell into a star!”

Rush didn’t say a word, Young had the all too familiar feeling that he was holding something back, but before he could press further Cassidy intervened.

“Since Pops wasn’t there, but Pops was,” – she frowned and shook her head, - “Let me try that again. Since Uncle?” – she waited until Rush shrugged his assent to the title, - “Okay, since Uncle wasn’t there and Pops was maybe you should be questioning me, not him?”

Young scowled at being double teamed by Rush and Rush Junior, but if it meant he was going to get answers he could put his ire to one side for now. 

“Tell me how the other Rush survived?”

Cassidy said in that infuriatingly calm Rush way; “The neural interface chair.”

Rush didn’t bat an eyelid even as Young glared at him; “You said you couldn’t find him.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You expect me to believe that? You are obsessed with that damn chair! It was bound to be the only place he went and since he is you, you would have known that!”

Young had stepped up into Rush’s personal space as he ranted, but Rush hadn’t backed off an inch; he turned his head just enough to address TJ without taking his eyes from the fuming mad man in front of him.

“TJ? I think the Colonel is in need of a sedative.”

“I’m in need of you telling me the bloody truth for once, Rush!”

“Eli where did I go when we thought Destiny was going to burn up in the first star we re-fuelled in?”

Eli didn’t look happy to be dragged into this conversation, but his answered quickly; “Erm, your quarters to finished reading a mediocre book.”

“So can you understand why I assumed that since Destiny was falling into a star that the other me would do the same thing?”

Young didn’t believe a single word; “You didn’t know about the chair then!”

“And yet he is telling you the truth Colonel. Uncle checked Pops’ quarters and then got back to this ship. Pops’ sat in the interface chair and Mom hooked him in. Together they managed to botch enough systems to escape the star. Uncle had nothing to do with.”

Young boggled at her, “Are you telling me Destiny can override the security programs the science team put in place around that damn chair?”

Cassidy gave him a long unblinking stare; “Mom and Pops were about to die, it’s amazing what that level of desperation will allow you to achieve.”

Any argument Young was about to make to that comment was interrupted by a low whistle from TJ.

“Wow this is, something.”

Young ground his teeth together in frustration, but managed to sound almost calm as he asked; “Is she Rush’s kid?”

“Oh yeah. She’s got Rush’s DNA and whatever the hell this is in the telomeres.”

TJ turned the screen so the others could take a look at the results of Cassidy’s scan. Eli bumped shoulders with Rush as the both leaned in closer, and TJ broke it down into layman’s terms for Young.

“Telomeres are sequences at the end of chromosomes, they protect the important cell data during replication, as far as we currently know the play a part in the aging process. Her telomeres are full of this, this…”

Eli came to her aid; “That’s ship code, she is literally made of the ship. How is that possible?”

Cassidy chuckled; “Well when a daddy scientist and a mommy star ship love each other very, very much … they make use of the sarcophagus in the level nine cargo hold, and ta-dah!”

Eli squirmed and Rush ran his hand over his beard to hide his laughter, “I think that counts as getting you back for your comment in the Gateroom Mr Wallace.”

“Yeah, I’m just not going to ask for any more details on the mechanics, okay?”

“A wise choice Eli.”

TJ huffed; “There’s a sarcophagus on board? Would it have killed the Ancients to include a manifest on the computer?”

TJ’s question was a valid one, and had been asked plenty of times before, but with no Ancient around to ask they were no closer to getting an answer. TJ shook her head and turned her attention back to her patient, “As far as I can tell you are Rush’s daughter and you’re the healthiest week old human hybrid I’ve even seen.”

“You’re only a week old?”

Rush could see that Eli was gearing up for a torrent of questions, not of which would be important and all of which would be heavily peppered with pop culture references he wouldn’t understand.

“As interesting as your age is Cassidy I’d much rather know how you altered Destiny’s course.”

She gave him a smirk that he was more used to feeling on his own face rather than seeing on another person.

“I was wondering when we’d get to the good stuff. You got some chalk and a spare wall for me to use, Uncle?”

She hoped down from the medbed and flexed her bare toes against the floor. TJ nodded to her feet; “I can find you some shoes, or at least some socks.”

“Oh no, please don’t. I don’t like wearing them. Pops had enough trouble talking me into clothes.”

TJ bit back a laugh, not at Cassidy, but at the look of horror on Rush’s face.

“Okay no sock or shoes then.”

Rush gestured at the door with a sarcastic wave of his hand; “Can we get to the maths now?”

Cassidy strolled out of the medbed in perfect step with Rush. Young gave Eli a meaningful look that caused the young man’s shoulders to sag.

“I know I’m on Rush-watch.”

He jogged after them called for them to wait for him. TJ cast an eye over the tension in Young’s shoulders.

“Rush and mini-Rush to worry about, are you sure you don’t want that sedative?”

“I might need it. She says she can get us home.”

“Do you believe her?”

“I don’t know, yet.”


End file.
